Mercury Transit 2006
NOVEMBER 9, 2006
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Weather had been bad for
the past few days. But November 9, the transit day was clear. I
was imaging with
my buddy, the renowned planetary imager Tomio Akutsu at my home in Banilad, Cebu City,
Philippines. I am using a Solarmax 60 Hydrogen Alpha Filter attached to my Astrophysics AP130EDF refractor. For imaging I used trusty DMK 21BF04 camera. Tomio used his C8 with Baader Planetarium Astrosolar density 5 filter and his Canon Digital Rebel XL camera. Seeing was around 9/10 with 4/5 transparency. Mercury was already past maximum transit during sunrise. Sadly I wasn't able to capture because of low clouds. I was able to get a good record on the last 10 minutes of the transit. As a bonus, sunspots AR921 and 922 are in the field of view of Mercury. Including some small fireworks from AR922! Also another surprise was AR923 rising which is a huge sunspot. After the Transit, Tomio and I were very exhausted because of the heat but we were very happy! This will be the last Mercury transit visible in the Philippines till 2032. But this is the 4th Mercury transit I have observed and Tomio's first! |
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Copyright 2006 Christopher Go